Just re-examine the Spanish Inquisition. The latest focus appears to
be a vindication of the role of religion.

By standards of the 13th to 16th centuries it is being said that punishment
by death or banishment was normal operating procedure. And some would
say we must not impose standards of our time. Why bring this up at all?

Think for a bit about the racial dissention stirred by the two trials
of a sports hero or wife beater in the never-ending publicity. Think about
the burning of churches and destruction of synagogues. Where does a burning
racial hatred begin? How is it fueled? Some of the latest literature on
the inquisition indicate that it is political.

Sociologists identify the instinctive fear of strangers as potential
enemies, a fear many living species display toward encroachments upon
their domains, as a feeling called by the Greeks, xenophobia. It is virtually
universal and sometimes becomes policy in governments. Executions as a
matter of public policy have been studied extensively in association with
the Spanish Inquisition.

Professor emeritus, B. Netanyahu, of Cornell, traces the roots of the
policy, through Greek and Hebrew history, into the sixth century B.C.E.
with various governments wiping out peoples who attempt to change the
culture.

From the latter part of the 10th century until the beginnings of the
12th there were many executions of heretics - either by burning or strangling
- in France, Italy, the Empire and England. By this time the litmus test
was religious belief.

The origin of The Inquisition, which insisted heretics be stripped of
wealth and life, was firmly established in the early 1200s. Gregory IX,
declared general legislation in which the penalties of death, banishment
and confiscation of property were formulated so clearly as to be incontestable.
No mention of torture. Catholic bishops could subject their towns to the
full rigor of imperial laws and answer to no one.

However - The Inquisition - was the name given to the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction dealing with the detection and punishment of heretics. All
persons guilty of any offence against Catholic orthodoxy were secretly
accused by the government. Accusers were never revealed.

Ecclesiastic means church law, in this context, the Catholic church.
Jurisdiction means authority, therefore, governors, and they set the laws.
Governors during the history of The Inquisition were bishops appointed
by Rome, mostly because they already had histories of extracting wealth
from their parishioners. They were citizens of Madrid but paid homage
to Rome.

Romans began to Latinize the Iberians around 201 BC. Scipio Aemilianus,
the first and only Roman general of the time, besieged the fortress of
Numantia for 15 months, defeating the Spanish brutally according to historic
accounts. He tried to remove the commissioner's powers which made him
the chief enemy of the popular party. He died mysteriously at a young
age. There is the powerful political link.

The Inquisition, according to H.C. Lea, found few victims among the poor.
There was no profit where there was no wealth to be taken so there was
no inquisition. It was because the results of wealth confiscation echoed
into the future that Lea identified the economic link. My source was H.C.
Lea "History of the Spanish Inquisition" (1905) as cited in Encyclopeadia
Britannica. Professor Netanyahu calls Lea the greatest historian of all
times on The Spanish Inquisition. ("Origins
of the Inquisition" Benzion Netanyahu, Random House, New York, 1995.)

The main point seems to be that Lea "failed to inquire into the origins
of the Inquisition in a manner that could expose the true reason for its
racism and thereby also the motives for its establishment. Supposedly,
converts to Catholicism were accused of just pretending to be christian
and the government decided to inquire into their true feelings and confess
their heresy.

The travesty has influenced and horrified the world ever since. It was
political and economical because it was public policy. And it was religious
because heresy is a religious concept. Let us not forget that.

When a nation is run by a religion, the church leaders make the rules.
At the time of the infamous Spanish Inquisition, the Christian (Catholic)
church was struggling to wrest control of the land from rich Moorish and
Jewish populations. What better way to gain control than to kill or banish
rich offenders? So convenient to be in power and assume ownership of unclaimed
wealth.

In 1478 Isabella and Ferdinand requested a papal bull establishing an
inquisition and by 1480 the inquisitors set to work in earnest. When the
final edict expelling the Jews from Spain was issued in 1492, the Spanish
Inquisition was securely in place to combat religious deviation from within
the christian community. ("Inquisition"
Edward Peters, Macmillan, New York, 1988)

Religion practiced genocide through politics during the dark
ages. Think about the similarity to the present, when wars are glorified
and violence is made the hallmark of success regardless of how the political
and economical outcomes affect future generations.